


Here Comes a Thought (That Might Alarm Me)

by notimmortal



Series: Take A Moment To Think of Just Flexibility Love and Trust [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Can be read as friends tho, First Person, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Lots of important detail there, M/M, Please read the notes on this one, actual relationship if you squint, shifting pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 04:33:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12646176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notimmortal/pseuds/notimmortal
Summary: Thoughts often lead to suffering, especially when you feel you're one your own.





	Here Comes a Thought (That Might Alarm Me)

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ
> 
> So this fic is heavily based on my personal experiences. I will be diving deeper into this in a note at the end, but please keep this in mind before you call this inaccurate because it is very accurate to what has happened to me.
> 
> On a lighter note, the title comes from the song "Here Comes a Thought" from Steven Universe

Alex

Of all the things that has happened to me, being roommates with Thomas Jefferson in my senior year of college was one of the cruelest. 

Not the worst, mind you. Losing my mother was the worst, followed by the hurricane. No, rooming with Thomas was the cruelest thing the universe has done to me because it forces me to be in close proximity to my enemy. My enemy I happen to be in love with.

Constantly being around the person that I have grown (against all logic, I might add) to love was infuriating. Thomas was always there, watching, waiting, picking fights with me. There was no escape.

And as if fate weren't already kicking my ass, I started having Problems again.

I don’t technically have depression. Well, I might, but my hatred of doctors and unwillingness to face a legitimate diagnosis kept me from finding out whether or not I am clinically depressed. Instead, I go with referring to what I'm feeling as capital-P Problems. This way I don’t remove the validity from depression with the uncertainty of self-diagnosis. There's a certain stigma to depression and a completely different stigma to self diagnosis, both of which I try to avoid.

I've had Problems since my senior year of high school. Instead of being logical and telling Martha and George (who had adopted me when I was 13) I stuck to talking about it with my friends, and only when things just brushed the edge of too bad. And, if we're being completely honest here, I had also taken to some rather unsavory methods of coping, cutting open my thighs (easiest place to hide) everyday for two years. 

But one day in the middle of my sophomore year of college, I stopped feeling the force of his Problems. I got happier, stopped cutting myself, stopped wanting to die. Things were going so well for me, and my friends were so much happier because of it. They didn’t have to deal with my Problems anymore. Hell, I didn’t have to deal with my Problems anymore.

Or so I thought, at least. 

The summer before my senior year of college, the Problems came back. It was as if  
I were Atlas, bearing the weight of the world on my shoulders. Only I wasn't Atlas, so I was being crushed by the sky above.

Fast forward to now, just after midterms in first semester, deeply in love with a man who hates me and wanting to die more as each day passed. So far I haven't resorted to cutting myself again, but the urge was back. It scares me. It would scare my friends if I had told them. But they've taken care of me for too long, they didn’t need this again. Didn't deserve this again.

If my friends had noticed me getting worse again, they didn’t say. Maybe I hid it better than I thought. It would make sense as to why they haven’t said anything. Or maybe they just don’t want to draw attention to it because they don’t want to have to help you again.

The one person who did notice was the one I wished wouldn’t: Thomas Jefferson.

It was a Friday night and I had just turned down Lafayette’s invitation to go get drinks with everyone. The week had been so exhausting, I just didn’t have it in me to be social, wanting instead to curl up on my bed and not move for the rest of the weekend. Whether this was a side effect of the Problems or the classes, I didn't know. 

“Hamilton,” Jefferson said, walking into the room. “Why aren’t you going out with Lafayette tonight?”

“How did you know I was supposed to go out with Laf?” I asked, uncurling myself slightly from the ball of blankets on the bed. 

“Laf and I are friends. He was inviting me out as well, and asked me to try and talk you into going. So what gives, Hamilton?”

I curled back in on myself. “I’d just rather not.”

“Hamilton, are you okay?” I could hear him walking closer to me, the door clicking shut behind him.

“I’m fine, Jefferson,” I said shortly. “Just go out with Laf and the others and leave me here.”

“No.”

“No?”

Jefferson sat down on the edge of the bed. “No. You’re going to tell me what’s wrong and you’re going to let me help you,” Jefferson said with a tone of finality. 

“And why the fuck would I do that, Jefferson?” I spat out venomously. “So you can use this against me?”

“So I can- Fuck, Alex, do you really think so little of me?” Jefferson asked. “Yes, we argue and debate, but I would never use your personal problems against you. I’m not like Seabury or Lee. I don’t shoot that low.”

Jefferson had sounded so genuine that I almost felt forced to believe him. “I'm sorry.”

Jefferson sighed. “Don't apologize, Alex. Just let me know what I can do to help. What's going on in that head of yours? Your friends are worried. I’m worried.”

I wanted to explain, I really did. But how could I? If my own friends didn't even want to deal with my problems, how could I force them onto my enemy? What was their even to say?

“Hamilton?”

“You called me Alex before,” I said, looking down and avoiding the question.

Jefferson put his hand on my thigh, forcing my eyes up in shock. “You're right, I did. Please, Alex, just tell me what's wrong.”

“Do you ever scare yourself?”

Jefferson tilted his head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Do you ever think about what you’re capable of? And I’m not talking about the good things, I’m talking about the horrifying things people are capable of. Like theft or murder or suicide. Do you ever think about things like that Jefferson?” I pause, and it looks as though he were going to answer, so I push on. “Because I do. I do all the time. And I have for years. But there was this brief period, this brief and glorious period where I didn’t. Where I was okay. But everything is just falling down on me again and I… I can’t do this.”

“Alexander…”

“You should just go, Jefferson,” I said, cutting him off. “Please. Just go.”

Jefferson looked at me as if he wanted to protest, part of me desperately wanted him to protest. But he didn’t. He looked at me with a mixture of sadness and resignation before finally getting up and walking out of the dorm. 

And so I was alone again.

***

Thomas

I’ve been kicking myself ever since I stepped out of our dorm room. Alex clearly needed help, needed someone to be there with him, and I just left.

Luckily for me, I know exactly where to find all of Alexander’s friends: Lafayette’s favorite bar, The Boar Hat. I jogged down the street to the bar, instantly spotting Lafayette buying a round for his friends. 

“Lafayette!”

“Ah, Thomas you made it!” Lafayette said, turning around with a bunch of drinks in his hand. “If you would be so kind as to help me carry these over to the table in the back corner.”

I do as Laf says, carrying a tray of drinks to the corner table where I am greeted by John Laurens, Hercules Mulligan, Angelica Schuyler and her sisters Eliza and Peggy, and, most shockingly, Aaron Burr. 

“Jefferson,” Mulligan said. “Take a seat. Is Alex with you by any chance?”

“That’s actually why I’m here,” I said, taking a seat as Lafayette approaches the table with the remaining beverages. “I’m worried about Alexander.”

“Join the club, mon ami. We have t-shirts,” Laf says, sitting down across from me.

“Laf, I’m being serious.”

“As am I,” he shoots back, reaching into his bag to pull out something. He throws it to me, and I see that it is indeed a t-shirt. The front read I joined a club to worry about Alexander Hamilton and all I got was a lousy shirt. “That’s this year’s design, made by Peggy. We hold a contest every year to decide on a new one. I’ve had ones in both yours and James’ size, waiting for the day you’d admit you worry. Even Burr has a shirt.”

I stare at the shirt in my hands and then back at Alex’s friends. “How long has this been going on?”

Laurens takes a sip of his drink before asking “How long has what been going on? The club, or Alex himself?”

“All of it, I guess,” I said, loosely grasping a glass. I couldn’t bring myself to drink from it. 

“Alex has been like this since the summer before our senior year of high school,” Eliza said. “Our little club had formed around December that year.”

I take another look at everyone’s faces. They all shared the same somber expression. “What exactly does Alex suffer from? Is he depressed or…”

“We think so,” Angelica said, sharing a look with her sisters. “But as far as an actual diagnosis goes, we have no idea.”

“He calls it Problems. With a capital P,” Peggy supplied, taking a swig from her glass. “I guess the capital P makes it more dramatic, but I feel that having problems either way is pretty bad.”

Burr decided to take that moment to join the conversation, “He had been a lot better for a while though. Around the end of our sophomore year here, the only year he didn’t share a room with one of us, he seemed to be better. He was back to being his usual, annoying Alexander self.”

I think back on my time of knowing Alex. I had only met him at the beginning of our sophomore year, having decided to change my major to Political Science instead of something to do with agriculture. He had been very quiet at the beginning of that year, only really speaking when he was debating someone for class. By the end of the year, it seemed like he never shut up or stopped debating. I then think of the Alexander that I left alone in our dorm. 

“He’s been so quiet lately,” I said, prying myself away from my thoughts. “I didn’t think much of it until today, actually. When he turned you guys down again and just curled up on his bed. It was…Scary, almost. Like he was fading away.”

Eliza nodded solemnly. “We’ve been worrying about him for a few weeks now. At first we thought it was just the stress of…” Eliza trailed off, looking at me sheepishly. “Well, no offense, living with you. And then we thought it was midterms. But he’s still been so distant, so quiet, so…”

“Un-Alexander,” I offered. 

“Yes. Very un-Alexander.”

Silence falls over the group. Everyone is staring down at their cups, not sure of what to say. Then Laurens catches my eye. “You need to help him, Thomas.”

“Me?” I ask, even though I knew full well that I intended to help him anyway. 

“Yes, you. He’ll listen to you. Sure, he’ll argue with you and be combative as hell, but he’ll listen to you. I know he will,” Laurens says, eyes locked firmly on mine. “It’s… Well, it’s not my place to say why. But he will. Just… Just help him. Please.”

“Okay.”

***

After finishing my drink, I walked back to my dorm. The others seemed adamant that I head back, stating their increasing worry for Alex as he wasn’t answering anyone’s texts. I approached the dorm quickly and quietly, trying my best not to startle him.

“Alexander?” The ball of blankets that had originally inhabited Alex’s bed had migrated to the floor between our beds. I could see a slight twitch of movement, confirming my suspicion that Alex was in that bundle. “Alex, come out of there. Let’s talk.”

The bundle of blankets moved slightly. A muffled “Don’t wanna talk” could be heard. 

“Don’t make me pick you up, Alex.”

“Just leave me alone.” Instead of replying, I lifted Alexander and placed him on the bed, pulling the blanket off of his head as I did so. Alex looked at me, utterly defeated. “There, you can see my face now. Please leave me alone.”

“I can’t do that, Alex,” I said, pulling his small body into my lap. I felt him tense, but after a few hesitant breathes, he began to relax. “I wish I understood what was happening in that brain of yours.”

“Yeah, well, join the club,” Alex mumbled out. 

“Alexander.”

“Thomas.”

“Please, just talk to me. Let me help you,” I said, placing a small kiss to the top of his head. “I don’t want you to suffer alone.”

***

Alex

I was crying. 

I didn’t know when the tears had started, but they were coming down, hard and fast. “I don’t know what to do, Thomas.”

“So talk to me,” he said gentilly. “Talk to me so I can help you.”

“I’m not depressed. Well, I might be. I don’t know. But I’m something and it scares me and I don’t know what to do. And I was okay. For a couple years, I was perfectly fine. And now I’m not and it’s terrifying, Thomas, it’s terrifying. I know my friends would help if I could just tell them but I can’t do this to them, not again. They went through so much the first time around. Eliza found one of my notes. John had to hold me while I cried on more nights than I can count. Laf and Herc had to take all the pills out of my home. Even Burr had to come and make sure I wasn’t too far gone. I put them through so much, I can’t do that again. And I know they’re worried, how can I not? But they just think I’m stressed, not that I’m slipping. Not that I’m wanting to do these horrible things to myself again,” I take a breathe, stalling the words that were spilling out of me. “I’m so scared, Thomas. I’m so fucking scared of myself.”

Thomas’s arms tightened around me. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Alex. You are so loved, by your friends, by the Washingtons, by… by me,” All the air leaves my lungs at that point, but Thomas just continues. “And I know being loved isn't enough to make what you're feeling go away. It's not enough to wash away the pain that you're feeling. But you need to know that you are loved and that those who love you want to help you. We will do anything we can to help you. You are not a burden, Alexander. And I know your mind is trying to make you believe that you are, but you are not a burden.”

“I don't know what to do, Thomas. I don't know how to make it stop.”

“Then we'll figure it out,” he whispered, softly kissing my forehead. “And it may take some time, but I'm going to help you. Your friends are going to help you. You're not alone, Alex. We won't leave you alone.”

Thomas and I laid there on the bed like that, wrapped in each other's arms, for several hours. For the first time in months, I felt something other than numbness.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated but never required. If you keep reading, I'm going to explain my personal connections to this story (but you are welcome to ignore it if you feel it may be triggering or you simply don't care)
> 
> Like Alexander in this story, I have what I refer to as Problems. Part of me feels like it may be high functioning depression, but my parents are very weird about mental illness and I don't feel comfortable bringing it up to them or my doctor.
> 
> That being said, I'm actually a high school senior at the moment (rather than a college one, like the characters)  
> When I originally started feeling this way and harming myself, I was in 8th grade. I had chalked it up to just being unbalanced hormones due to puberty and the like. It wasn't until these feelings came back in my junior year that I realized it likely was something else, but I couldn't verify it.  
> The thoughts expressed by Alexander were actually things I had mentioned to one of my friends before (although we do not have any kind of romantic attachment as it is implied with Jefferson and Hamilton). 
> 
> This fic was the first I've written in a while that was self-projecting in this manner, and it was mostly done to combat the urge to self-harm. I've been clean for the past 2 years and I hope to be able to maintain that (which may lead to more fics like this in the future).
> 
> I'm sorry if any of you who read this feel that my description of the subject is inaccurate, I just wrote based on how I feel currently and what had happened to me in the past. 
> 
> Thank you again for reading this.


End file.
